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Deal Nerd sent us this infographic along with a description:

As a Valentine’s Day quickly approaches once again millions of men and women across the nation are woefully unprepared for this holiday. As we part with our hard-earned money in the the name of love, we wanted to know whether most relationships do it “For Love or For Money.”

Our team at Deal Nerd analyzed the numbers from the Retail Advertising and Marketing Association, a division of the National Retail Federation survey on consumer spending to determine exactly how much effort we are all putting into our Valentine’s Day gifts and found out some fun facts about Valentine’s Day as a consumer holiday.

The infographic starts off with a nice header and proceeds into a few stats about the Valentine’s Day experience. The combination of icons and data viz works well here, though I would suggest a different form of data visualization — the reason is that by using nontraditional shapes (unlike a circle or rectangle), this form opens debate as to whether you fill the percentage by height or by volume. These appear to be completed based on the height of the object, but that doesn’t always visually translate quite clearly. Later, however, the data visualization tapers off.

In all I’d give this infographic a C. I’d like to see more organization, since right now the order of the stats in this infographic doesn’t seem to matter. In crafting a narrative, order should be important — this can be emphasized with section headers. There also isn’t an intro or conclusion, which are great devices for shaping the beginning, middle, and end of that narrative. However, its aesthetic matches the topic, it makes an attempt at data visualization, and it does a good job of keeping things nice and succinct.

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The Law Offices of David W. Holub, P.C. submitted this infographic to us!

It features a few sets of stats about car accidents in the state of Indiana, offering an interesting insight into what drivers should be aware of. Using data viz, it’s easy to see that Failure to Yield and Tailgating are equally common factors in Indiana car accidents.

Something I’d like to see at the top of the infographic is a greater separation between the title and the information. Right now, the title “Top Accident Causes” is juxtaposed with an introductory stat on the total number of traffic collisions. That number should be moved down and the title allowed to stand on its own, especially since it’s also not clear whether “Indiana 2011″ is meant to be read as part of the title either.

My favorite piece of data visualization is in the final section, where we can clearly see the state’s average collision rate juxtaposed with the holidays’ higher rates.

I wish that the infographic didn’t end abruptly after that, though! It’s best to end with a closing statement or call to action that provides a sense of completion for the viewer.

In all I’d give this infographic a C, because it’s short and sweet but would benefit from a bit less text and a more holistic feel.

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This infographic was submitted to us by HCL Nursing.

This has some great stats about the love holiday! From how many Brits celebrate Valentine’s Day to historical context for the holiday and other love traditions, it spans a good range of information. It was interesting to learn that a factory that makes candy hearts has such a high level of coworker relationships!

It’d be great to see a little less dependence on text, using visuals to showcase the information more. I think the 59% of Brits celebrating is data visualization as it looks like roughly 59% of the UK is shaded in — but that’s the only instance of it throughout. The 10 beds to 400 beds visual could have used quantagrams to convey the increase, and same for the Lovehearts stat. Use visuals instead of text wherever possible to keep your infographic easy to digest!

In all I’d give this infographic a B-. It stays short overall but there’s a fair amount of text in the second half of the IG, and it would be nice to see a few more visuals that assist the text content.

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This infographic was submitted to us by PersonalizationMall.com

This is a fun concept for a majority of shoppers. The flow chart styled in a Christmas tree shape keeps the holiday spirit going throughout the design, and the photos let viewers see exactly what choice they’ve wound up with.

The flow chart can be a bit problematic, though. If you choose that you’re celebrating a special occasion, all the options feed into relationship-related ornaments. If “A gift for someone” and the person is an adult, all the options are alcohol-themed — and the chart implies that all women only like wine and all men only like beer. Things like this can be a little touchy with some consumers, so always be mindful of what you’re insinuating when you offer options like this.

In all, the pictures are helpful and the concept is fun, and text is kept fairly short throughout, but I would love to see a little bit of hard data associated here too — how many people decorate trees? Where do ornaments rank on the list of most popular gifts? Fun stats like that can help draw the viewer in and provide a bit of context.

Also keep your end goal in mind when deciding on copy/concept, as this infographic comes off as a full sales piece, which decreases shareability overall. Keep branding minimal if you want social traction!

In all I’d give this a B — make sure you’re not alienating anyone with limited choices on your flow chart, and watch the amount of self-promotion to guarantee more engagement!

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This is a fun way to get into the holiday spirit! Fun to see some Christmas classics lined up at the start of the IG. There’s lots of holiday imagery throughout (love the little bird with the winter hat).

That said, it is a little busy with the amount of icons and gradient effects on so many callouts. It’s best to pick a basic color palette and stick with it, allowing unique illustrations, typography, and colors their own balanced chance to shine, instead of trying to pack too much in with icons atop busy backgrounds.

Additionally there is no visualization of the data here: viewers have to read the numerals to understand the values, when pie charts or other creative data viz could be used instead. It also looks like there are a few typos throughout: “American Adults” should be “American adults,” “2. Displaying lights” should be “2. Displaying Lights” since all the others are in title casing, and more.

It would also be great to see an intro and conclusion on the infographic so that when it’s shared, everyone can have a bit of context on what they’re going to see before the content and what to think about at the end.

In all I’d give this infographic a C, as data visualization should be employed to reduce reliance on copy, and it could use a more harmonious aesthetic. Happy holidays!

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This infographic was submitted to us by ADT Choose Home Security, who also provided this description:

In the U.S. a home burglary occurs every 14.6 seconds. It’s an alarming number, especially around the holiday season– the perfect time for a burglar to strike.

Burglars will often target: cash, jewelry, laptops, guns, digital cameras, small electronics (iPods, GPS, PDA’s MP3’s and CD’s). But at ADT Choose Home Security, we’ll give you a special gift: a peace of mind.

It’s time to secure those items on a burglar’s wish list and keep them safely wrapped up under the tree.

This graphic features bold colors and startling statistics! It makes a fairly quick guide for viewers to get the facts on holiday burglaries.

Unfortunately, none of the data here is visualized. Every stat on the left panel of the design could be shown with a pie chart, bar graph, pictogram, or other creative form of data visualization. But without that, the viewer has to read to get all of the information. Even corresponding icons would help, since all of the data points just point to the family through the keyhole rather than corresponding to anything in particular on the illustration.

It’s important for infographics to visualize information whenever possible! As such, I’d have to give this design a C — the illustrations are nice and the information is useful, but aside from the illustration of the burglar’s wishlist with its icons, there aren’t any other elements of an infographic here.

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Today’s infographic submission comes to us from Center Parcs, a company that specializes in family holidays. The infographic uses the same colors as their website, so it’s clear that they are trying to stick to a brand palette for the design as opposed to placing a logo at the bottom of the infographic. The design itself seeks to identify 5 different types of dads and the things their kids can do for them on Father’s day without breaking the bank.

Ultimately, while this is a fun infographic concept, I am not sure it’s the best execution. The text is more of a focal point than the graphics, which begs the question: why not just write an article? Infographics serve many purposes, but one of those purposes is to do away with reading assignments and let the pictures tell the story. In a world where thousands of infographics are released daily, it’s important to focus on quality design for your infographic to get noticed, but I fear this will just hide in the crowd versus stand out.

Some suggestions for improvement:

Fully illustrate each type of dad versus using a silhouette. The lack of detail makes it hard to identify any humorous stereotypes about each dad and force the viewer to rely on the supporting text to find the humor in the piece. Since infographics are meant to save time for the viewer, forcing someone to read the text to fully understand the design goes against the point and hinders this design’s chances at success.

Expand the color palette to draw the eye in more. While I understand that the intentions of this design were to use the brand colors, this color palette is very flat and makes it so that there is not a visual hierarchy. This can be distracting for the viewer

Make the text smaller so that a viewer doesn’t feel overwhelmed. In general, an infographic with more than 200 words of text will get skipped over immediately, even ones with less than 200 words that have large text may be ignored, simply because the text size makes people feel like they are looking at an article instead of an infographic. Pairing down the text and making the font sizes smaller will help fix this problem.

This infographic was submitted to us by Baines & Ernst, who also provided this description:

According to the new Infographic from Baines & Ernst – The Cost Of Celebrations – us Brits spend a whopping 2.4 billion on Valentine’s day! But that’s not the only celebration where we splash the cash…

This graphic is packed with stats and features some nice illustration. It’s an interesting choice of holidays to include (no winter holidays or graduations?) but it is good to have a specified focus!

It seems a little random to me whether some facts were included in the main body of the infographic or in the “Did You Know?” section at the botom. I think better differentiation would make this a bit more intuitive for the reader.

I also want to see data visualization here. The stats are listed and sometimes accompanied by iconography, but they are never visualized with charts, graphs, pictograms, etc. Data visualization is key to a great infographic — so much so, in fact, that without data viz, it isn’t really considered an infographic at all.

I’d make the design a little more focused, too. It’s a bit “busy” with objects jutting in from all sides, overlapping each other – it’s tough to know where to look.

In all I’d give this graphic a C-. It’s got the data down, but it needs organization, visualization and some de-cluttering!

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This infographic was submitted to us by My Voucher Codes. They also provided a description:

In celebration of this year’s Valentine’s Day, My Voucher Codes has delved deep into the romantic mind-set of the UK, creating an infographic to demonstrate just how loved up and spend-happy us Brits really are. In a poll of 2,446 people, we uncovered statistics to show which cities are more inclined to splash out on loved ones, the most popular types of gift – as well as how couples and singletons plan to spend the day. Are we a country of sentimental souls, or do we simply give in to commercial hype? We’ll leave it up to you to decide.

This infographic has some good examples of data viz (a heart pie chart!) and is packed full of statistics. It’s a very clean and well-organized infographic, so it’s simple to browse straight through it without stumbling on anything confusing. I learned a lot about Valentine’s Day in the UK!

I feel that the top portion of the infographic (from the title through the “Biggest Romance Spenders” section) could be more visually engaging, though. Since the background is busy throughout, it’d be easy to go overboard, but I think something a little less subtle than the heart tag with the word “by” would help draw the reader in. There’s ample use of iconography later in the IG, so maybe if some of that were brought up toward the beginning of the graphic, the viewer would be more inclined to keep looking.

The weight of the Most Romantic and Most Un-Romantic cities is also pretty heavy, since it’s given so much real estate on the design. I think if it were scaled back a touch, that would streamline the flow a bit.

Although there is some data visualization, it’s not utilized to its full potential for the most part. There are only 4 visualized data points/sets even though there’s tons of data, so I’d love to see it brought out a bit more!

In all I’d give this IG a B-. It’s got the idea down — it could just use some more charts, graphs, etc.

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This infographic was submitted to us by CouponCodes4U.

There’s a few pieces of good data viz here, and lots of great Christmas-y information! I like the background image and the adorable illustrations. However, some inconsistencies and missed opportunities are bringing the infographic down.

Some types of proofing errors really stand out on an infographic. One of these is the choice to include or exclude periods from the end of data points and fragments. This seems to be overlooked in lots of infographics out there, including this one. There are also capitalization issues: “Who’s giving Gifts?” “Santa Claus facts…” “Milk & Cookies” etc. Words seem to be capitalized at random in subheadings.

The designer should also decide if they’re going to write out full numbers or abbreviate. In “Milk & Cookies,” 114.8m is followed by 229,522,718. Either the first number should be changed to 114,800,000 or the second number should be abbreviated to 229.5m.

Additionally, the “Santa Claus facts…” section only has one fact about Santa. With the population info, I thought it might be estimating the length of time it would take Santa to reach each house, but it didn’t seem to relate. That’s an example of a title that doesn’t really introduce what’s to follow.

There are many missed opportunities for data viz — although there are dozens of numbers in this IG, there are only 3 instances of data visualization. There are dozens of fun holiday-themed ways to visualize this info, so I wish I could see more creativity and visualization here. How about candy cane bar graphs? Santa’s sleigh drawing a line graph across the sky?

In all I’d give this infographic a C. It needs more data viz, better organization, and more careful proofreading to become fantastic.